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Rating:  - I just love this movie
I just love this movie -- if I have to watch tv with the kids, this is my choice. It gives models for great virtues:
+ innocence
+ trust
+ defending the weak
+ good manners
+ patience
the little mice that sing and talk at the opening/closing of each "Chapter" are hilarious.
The movie has no dark and scary parts -- my kids are still too little to handle much suspense. It is a gentle and sweet kids' (and adults') movie
and I get a big kick out of it.
Rating: - If I had words.....
If you can suspend your disbelief and cynicism for an hour or two..., then you may leave this movie feeling that despite all of our flaws that there is something good, true and dare I say it noble in all of us.
You can read the other review for a synopsis of the film, but for me two scenes come to mind that reveal the true magic of this wonderful film
When James Cromwell as Farmer Hoggett sings and dances for the sick little pig, a truly human and tender gesture of affection for Babe, I find myself choking up with emotion (that's not a tear, that's a speck of dust in my eye).
Similarly when the Farmer Hoggett places his faith and trust in Babe to be able to perform in the sheep trial, when despite all the laughter and ridicule he stands firm, until the trial is over and the gate is closed, that moment my friends is pure bliss and transcendence.
Perhaps it is become there are few characters as masculine or manly as an Australian farmer, but beneath his gruff exterior there lies a human being, and this film shows that sometimes despite what the world tells us, our humanity can only be found in our most human of moments.
Cheers!
Rating: - Our Favorite!
This is one of our all time favorite movies and we were happy to find it on DVD!
Rating:  - Forced previews
The movie is fine, but the DVD has previews of other movies that cannot be skipped over. Please don't pay money to support this practice. If you pay for the movie, you shouldn't have to pay again by watching ads.
Rating:  - A Crunchy Parental Review of "Babe"
I had a hard time with whether or not to recommend the movie "Babe" in this review. Overall, it is a cute movie, but it has a lot of issues, and so I would not recommend it readily, and certainly not for someone under the age of, say, 12, and then only with eyes wide open.
It isn't the language (there is only one notable language issue - when one of the animals calls another a "butt head").
It's the violence. This is a very violent movie; much more so than I had remembered from the first time I saw it, back when it first came out.
It starts with the farmer taking the baby pig ("Babe") out to shoot him for Christmas dinner. He carries a loaded shotgun, and you see him walk out with it, you hear the shot, and then you see him walking back to the house with a dead animal (which turns out to be a duck, not Babe).
Then you see several animals looking through a window into the house, at the Christmas dinner scene, including a different duck, who is mourning the dead duck that they are eating.
And that's only the beginning.
As Babe becomes more of a favourite around the farm, and starts trying to herd sheep, one of the two real sheep dogs - the male - goes crazy, and attacks his mate (the female sheep dog - "Mom" - Babe's `adopted mother') in a fight which leaves her and the farmer wounded, and causes the male dog to be chained, muzzled, and drugged into a near comatose state.
During this time, Babe is making friends with the sheep, whom the dogs consider stupid and worthy of contempt - a feeling which is returned by the sheep.
The oldest sheep - Ma (or, in sheep, "Ma-a-a-a") - is a wise old female sheep, and is very sweet to Babe. In a horrific scene, she is attacked by a pack of wild dogs, brought down, and killed. The entire ruff around her neck is bloody. Babe, who drives the dogs off, sobs by her dead body, his own nose bloodied. That is how the farmer finds them, and he believes that Babe has killed the sheep. The next scene is of the dead sheep being driven back to the farm, on the back of a flatbed truck, her head flopping along the edge of the bed of the truck. The next scene is a very tense several moments of the farmer loading his shotgun, and taking Babe out to the shed, cocking the shotgun, and aiming it at Babe's head... finger on the trigger, slowly squeezing. (Because, you see, the rule is that any animal that kills a sheep has to be killed, and the farmer thinks that Babe killed Ma.)
In addition to the violence, there is bullying and intimidation (dogs to the sheep, a cat to Babe), and, of course, the "butt head", which in contrast to the violence seems tame, but is, none the less, pretty objectionable.
Perhaps I wouldn't have been so surprised and disappointed if "Babe" had garnered at least a PG rating, but these sorts of scenes are not what I expect - or want - in a G rated movie.
Anne
http://www.CrunchyReviews.com
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